Questionnaire app: no-code or roll your own?
Hello Indie Hackers,
suppose you were building an online coaching business that relied on the following workflow:
- Your client answers a series of semi-lengthy questionnaires on a variety of topics.
- You (the coach) review the answers submitted and get back to the client with feedback.
You want to get to market quick. You also want the majority of your time invested in content creation and marketing rather than software development.
However, a truly custom web app would add more value to your business in the long run because you have more unique workflows it could encapsulate.
Would you go with a no-code tool (which?) or would you invest in coding up a custom webapp up-front?
Thank you!
Why not use a specialized service/software you can adopt to your use case? See https://www.limesurvey.org/ or https://surveyjs.io/Overview/Library .
There is a middle ground.
Roll your own, but use tools like
-Cloud Database (Supabase, MongoDb Atlas)
-Cloud Functions (Vercel, Supabase,Realm Functions, Aws.. + 100 more)
-Auth(Supabase, Realm Auth, magic.link + 100 more)
-Backend(Render, Cloud functions)
-Front End(launchaco, webflow + 100 others)
There always is the middle ground, certainly, you do need to know how to code, but half the work is pretty much done for you, all you need to do is stitch them together.
To be honest, when thinking about "rolling my own" I had in mind coding up a Rails app. I've done it before and that's the stack I'm familiar with. I also don't know all the pros & cons of just coding up a Rails app, or stitching together a variety of tools (unfamiliar) to model my workflow. If you have considerations regarding this, I'd love to hear them.
Should go with Bubble if you want complete control. I think something simpler like Webflow could also do the deal with workflows in zapier etc.